Can SOPA and PIPA stop pirates? essay sample

Posted on June 22, 2017

The issue of online piracy is especially painful to artists and content creators. Very few people are willing to buy a licensed copy of a movie or an album these days when it is so easy to download the same content for free. Apparently, infringing websites are savvy enough, which allows them to find loopholes in the law to contribute to the large business of digital piracy. However, pirates do not restrict themselves merely to the online activity: in some countries, pirates issue the greater part of digital copies of movies and albums available in the market.

To eliminate the risk for industries, the US law enforcement organs work within the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. The SOPA legislation is aimed at prohibiting advertising networks to deal with infringing websites. It also demands search engines to block the access to such websites and requires a penalty for streaming of copyrighted content. The PIPA provides more tools to stop foreign websites from selling the copyrighted content. Proponents of the legislation claim that it will protect the intellectual property market and related industries from infringement. However, the opponents argue that SOPA gives the government a right to censor foreign websites for infringing which may have an extensive definition. Therefore, if the legislation comes into force, users may find out that too many websites provided a content which was infringing to some extent.

Apparently, the proposed legislation cannot adequately solve the problem of digital piracy so that industries have to search for a better way to avoid it. Perhaps, they can modernize and simplify the delivery of the content, which will induce users to pay for a high quality of movies they download. As soon as the pirates stop being the easiest way to access the content, they will appear non-demanded.